Crocodile immediately tried to elementalize.
But Jin was faster. Far faster.
With a brutal snap, his foot slammed into Crocodile's semi-sand body.
Boom!
The force of the kick knocked Crocodile out of his half-elemental state, sending him crashing into the earth. A crater burst open where his body landed.
"Heh..."
Blood trickled from his forehead, seeping into the sand. His vision blurred, spinning wildly. The pain was unbearable.
But more than the searing agony—what shook him to the core was that his elementalization had failed. And the wound he suffered was real.
His strongest defense had been shattered.
By a mere "rookie."
Crocodile clambered up, blood streaming down his face. Eyes red with disbelief and fury, he glared at Jin, who was closing in relentlessly. He slammed his palm to the ground—the Sand-Sand Fruit's power roared to life.
"All rocks upon the surface of this world—will eventually crack!"
From where he stood, the ground began to crumble.
Rocks turned to sand. The soil split. Grass withered into ash. The desert devoured everything.
And the destruction spread—fast.
"Haki?" Crocodile sneered. "Don't be naive!"
"The essence of the Sand-Sand Fruit… is dehydration. I can drain the moisture from everything—absolutely everything! And there is no limit to it. Anything within my domain—"
"Will dry out and die!!"
"Erosion Cycle!!!"
From him, a surge of death radiated outward.
Stones, buildings, even plants—all crumbled into sand and dust with terrifying speed.
The majestic crocodile-drawn carriage was caught in the wave. Its wooden frame rotted into splinters. The unconscious crocodile steeds shriveled into mummified husks, and then into grains of sand.
Robin gasped and bolted, heart pounding as she dodged the creeping death.
Ding!
Crocodile activated his terrain-altering move.
Desertification.
The sand beneath began to rotate. The ground caved in like a draining whirlpool.
It sounded slow—but in truth, from Crocodile's sneak attack to this apocalyptic assault, only seconds had passed.
Jin, who had been leaping toward him, instantly stepped upward.
Moonwalk.
He kicked the air, staying aloft above the spreading destruction.
"It's useless!" Crocodile roared, eyes sharp. "No one escapes my grip. Fall!"
Beneath Jin, the desert twisted again.
From the sand, dune after dune swelled—then transformed into massive hands made of swirling sand.
Dozens. Hundreds. Thousands of sand arms whipped upward like monstrous claws, blotting out the sky.
Each one carried the power of desiccation. Even a single touch would suck every drop of water from a living being.
Jin danced through the air, a blur of movement.
Each step boomed like thunder, shattering the wind as he darted through the sandstorm sky. Observation Haki kept him a step ahead, weaving through death with ease.
From afar, Robin could barely believe what she was seeing.
He can walk… in the air?
That's insane…
"Old Croc, you really should update your moves."
Jin's voice rang out from amidst the writhing sand arms. He was closing in.
Crocodile's rage spiked. And panic.
"Desert Forest: Great Sand Blade!!!"
With a roar, he plunged his hands into the ground.
Shhhhhhkkktttt…!
The desert rumbled. One sword. Then dozens. Then hundreds.
Thousands of towering sand blades erupted from the ground, reaching into the sky like a monstrous forest.
A forest of death.
Each blade the size of a tree, razor-edged and deadly.
They surged up around Jin, trying to pierce and crush him.
"Die!!!" Crocodile howled.
"Guhahahaha! Even with Haki, how can you survive this kind of large-scale assault?!"
But in the very next instant—
CRACK!!!
A deafening thunderclap ripped through the sky. One of the sand blades exploded.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Jin burst through the air, his entire body blazing with Armament Haki.
Black and crimson light wrapped around him like fire, radiating explosive energy.
Tearing through the sand blades, he smashed them one by one.
Then he began to fall—downward.
Like a meteor.
"Old Croc," Jin shouted from above, "have you ever seen a palm strike that falls from heaven?!"
He threw his hand forward—a blade-like palm surrounded in spiraling Haki light, cleaving through the sand forest.
Nothing could stop it.
Crocodile poured more power into his Great Sand Blades, erupting them like a rising tide. But none of them could stop Jin's descent.
Around them, the desert sand was caught in the storm. But it wasn't Crocodile controlling the winds anymore.
No—Jin was the storm.
"You bastard!!" Crocodile roared in fury.
He reached down—With a snap, he ripped off the golden casing of his left hook.
Beneath it—a glistening silver poison stinger, coated in oozing purple venom.
"You've got Haki… sure. But this—this is specially made—and not even your Haki can stop it!"
He lunged.
The poison stinger slashed forward—straight toward Jin's heart.
CRASH!!!
Jin met it with a palm strike, and the two weapons clashed in mid-air.
For a moment—there was silence. A stalemate.
Then—
CRACK!
The silver stinger shattered.
It didn't even pierce the dense Haki wrapping Jin's palm—a black-red shell harder than iron.
And then—
BOOM!
Jin's palm smashed into Crocodile's golden arm.
Crocodile flew like a ragdoll, blood spewing from his mouth. His arm dangled limp, shattered and broken beyond recognition.
The golden limb caved in where the palm struck, cracks spreading like spiderwebs, chunks falling off.
That was seastone gold. And Jin still shattered it.
The sheer power behind that strike—was terrifying.
In that final moment, Crocodile's thoughts drifted to the past.
To the days when he had been young. Brash. Full of ambition.
Until he fought Whitebeard. And was crushed by a power so overwhelming it shook him to the core.
After that defeat…he had lost his confidence. Lost faith in his own growth.
That strength—was it something he could ever attain?
He stopped trying.
For the next twenty years, he threw himself into schemes, into dreams of unlocking the ancient weapon Pluton. He stopped training. Stopped advancing.
No… it wasn't that he forgot. He decided it didn't matter anymore.
But now—today—a young man, wielding the very strength he had dismissed, had defeated him.
BAM!!!
Crocodile's back slammed into the ground.
The recoil bounced him into the air—blood sprayed from his mouth again. His body grew limp, his eyes losing focus.
And just before everything went dark—he saw a fist. Coated in unrelenting Haki. Descending.
THUD!!!
Crocodile crashed to the earth, blood pooling beneath him.
Robin had seen everything. Her hand covered her mouth.
Stunned. Terrified.
Defeated...?
Crocodile, one of the Seven Warlords of the Sea... had been defeated?!
That king—that man had now, in a single month, single-handedly taken down two Warlords?!
It was horrifying.
Robin's entire body trembled. She wanted to flee. But she was too afraid to be noticed. Too afraid to be hunted down. She stood frozen in fear.
Jin stood before the collapsed Crocodile. Gazing down at the fallen schemer, weighing his options.
To kill him—would be to claim a Logia Devil Fruit.
But—last time, when he defeated Hanafuda, the Five Elders had already intervened.
The Warlords were a force maintained by the Five Elders to balance the powers of the world—the Emperors, the Navy... and everything in between.
One death was a scandal. Two... could spark war.
And it still wasn't time for the Summit War.
The world remained in a delicate balance, teetering on shadow and silence.
If he stood too tall now—the wind would break him.
"Besides," Jin muttered to himself, "I don't have enough people I can trust. Crocodile knows how to manage Rainbase. He's still useful. If he's willing to submit, I'll spare him. If not—then I'll kill him later."
With that, Jin reached down—grabbed Crocodile by the collar—and hoisted him onto his shoulder like a sack of rice.
As he turned to leave, his eyes flicked toward the distant woman watching in fear.
"Oi.."
Robin froze.
She had been torn between running and staying.
In the end…she didn't have the courage to flee. And so, as if pulled by fate, she followed.The echoes of their battle had long shaken the capital.
…
Whoosh!
Pell, vice-captain of the royal guard, descended swiftly. He bowed low.
"Reporting, Your Majesty!"
"Mm," Jin nodded. "You came at a good time. I just had a bit of a scuffle with Crocodile. Might've gone a little overboard. Find a doctor."
"Y-yes! Right away!" Pell replied, still stunned.
He glanced at the bloody mess that was Crocodile—his chest heaving. Hard to believe.
That man was a Warlord of the Sea.
Pell, a user of the Falcon Model of the Bird-Bird Fruit, had flown high and seen everything. Every strike. Every technique. Every moment.
He had to report this to the king.
Also—Crocodile had been considered a hero by the people, for driving away pirates and protecting Alabasta.
If he died here... it would throw the kingdom into chaos.
Pell took off again.
Moments later, the second vice-captain, Chaka, arrived with a squad of soldiers.
He looked around in awe.
"King Jin... you really leveled Rainbase...?"
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